Habenaria ndiana Rendle 1895 SECTION Replicatae Kraenzl.

Photo courtesy of © Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Herbarium Jany Renz

Common Name The Ndi Habenaria

Flower Size .75" [1.8 cm]

Found in Kenya, Uganada, Tanzania and Malawi in seepage slopes among rocks or in grasslands with poor soils at elevations of 1300 to 3000 meters as a medium to large sized, cool to cold growing terrestrial with ovoid to ellipsoid tubers giving rise to an erect, leafy stem carrying 4 to 16, the lowermost 1 to 3 are sheathing, the midddle suberect, linear-lanceolate and the upper grading into bracts-like leaves that blooms in the summer on an erect, 4 to 10" [10 to 25 cm] long, densely several to many flowered inflorescence with scarious, shorter than the ovaries floral bracts.

"Approaches the malagasy H incarnata but has shorter stigmatic rocesses which do not exceed the anther canals amd the shape of the sepals differs as well. It is also near the Ethiopian< href="habhumilior.htm"> H humilior but it is a taller plant and has narrower lateral petals. In the narrower petals H ndiana differs from the allied H ichneumonea which also differs in the length of the bracts." Rendle 1895

Synonyms Bilabrella ndiana (Rendle) Szlach. & Kras-Lap. 2003; Habenaria ingrata Rendle 1895; Habenaria similis Schltr. 1906

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;

* J. Linn. Soc., Bot. 30: 393 Rendle 1895

J. Bot. 33: 279 Rendle 1895 as Habenaria ingrata

Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 38: 147 Schlechter 1906 as Habenaria similis

Flora of Tropical East Africa Part 1 Summerhayes 1968;

Orchids of Kenya Stewart & Campbell 1996;

Flora Zambesiaca Volume 11 Part one Pope 1998;

Richardiana 3: 141 Szlach. & Kras-Lap. 2003 as Bilabrella ndiana

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